Thursday, December 21, 2006

Follow-up to the last post on the lack of understanding of Freedom.

So a few people have gotten a little snotty about my post, and the following is one of the exchanges that occurred immediately afterwards. The person who wrote it then removed me from their friends list. I guess standing up for the founding principles of our country isn't ok if it happens to offend someone. *sigh*

So tell me how "fuck the niggers" or "fuck the jews" would not be free speech? How is speech free when you're only allowed to say things that don't offend other people? Answer me that.

You seriously need to go learn about what freedom actually means.

The only speech that is not protected is that which advocates violence. It's unfortunate that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of Free Speech. But "fuck the troops" is precisely that.

What harm does it cause? Aside from hurt feelings?

And don't think that I don't also support the troops and understand the difference between supporting them and supporting the policy makers who put them there etc.

But seriously, you're wrong. VERY wrong. It is your lack of understanding that is the problem here, not my trying to defend someone's constitutional rights. And frankly for you to want to shit on the very founding principles, the most fundamental rights and freedoms of this country... I think you frankly do a much deeper disservice to this country and to those troops... because once the rights guaranteed in the constitution are gone, you tell me just what exactly they're dying for. What "freedoms" they're defending? Because at that point, they'll all be gone so that your FEELINGs won't be hurt. So you won't be offended.

Sorry if it pisses you off, but you're the one who isn't grasping the magnitude of the matter.

(and Free Speech also gives you the right to join that group and voice your opinion. So why don't you go bitch at the people who made the group and not at someone who already understands the entire situation even better than you do.)

you know your logic amazes me. You're right. Everyone has the right to free speech. My free speech says that anyone who thinks that it is ok to hate our soldiers is not worth the time of day. I am ashamed that you would defend a group who hates anyone. I'm sure that if there were a group called "fuck the niggers" or "fuck the jews" they too would asked to leave the little world of MySpace. Hate the message not the messenger. Or hate Bush and his buds there in D.C. , not the men and women who are not just fighting, but dying, just so that people can hate them.

Your one sided version of this is quite amusing to me. I'm so glad that someone told me to check it out. It's funny that you would choose to share a portion of what I wrote to you, and not the whole thing. I am so sorry for you that you feel the need to talk trash about other people and treat them poorly to make yourself feel bigger. Your belief (or lack therof) in God withstanding, I'll pray for you. Understand that you calling me stupid, doesn't make me feel stupid. It makes you look stupid. ***andi

Justin, I wish I could make you see yourself the way others see you. You seem to think that I don't understand free speech and all that it implies. I do. You really must not know me very well to believe that I am so uneducated, and unintelligent. Again, I state that you have conveniently left out the portion of my writing that pointed out that the group on myspace is not speaking in a public arena, but the private group of myspace. Much like any newspaper, magazine, radio station, or television station, people on myspace must abide by a set of rules. One of those rules is that they must not post things that are considered offensive. That is why there is a space to report offensive material. Free speech is not what you seem to think it is. It is true, you can post WHATEVER you want anywhere you want. However, on myspace, if people are offended, they have the right to try to stop the offendors. I'm sorry to wake you up to reality, but we all have to do many things every day to try not to offend people. If you believe your speech is really so free, then why don't you go to work one day (if you have a job) and tell your boss to fuck himself, and proceed to calling him several vulgar names. See how free it is? You would lose a job. Just as your employer is a privater organization, so is myspace. Also, if speech is free unless it advocates violence, then why is cursing in public illegal in many areas? Your assumptions about people are not always, or even often correct. I never said I was a Christian. I never proclaimed to believe in Jesus Christ. I said believe in God. Also, I didn't remove you from my friends because you have different beliefs than me. I am very capable of having friends who don't believe as I do. I removed you because I don't need to consider people who don't respect me, and call me names, as my friends. You have offended me many times in the years we have known each other, not just this once. I choose only to associate with people who respect me, and that I can respect back. I want you to know, I don't think you are stupid. I think you are very intelligent. I also think you are very closed minded, one-sided, and shallow. I'm not angry with you, you've only proven more to me that I have no reason for you to be any part of my life. Good luck in yours.

There are laws against cursing in public for the same reason there have been and still are laws against getting a blowjob from your wife in your own bedroom, or having sex outside of the missionary position in the privacy of your own home etc. Laws against homosexual activity, against interractial marriages, against activities on Sunday etc... because groups of ignorant people all agree to suppress the rights of minorities etc and are too stupid to understand the damage done. What kind of justification is it that these laws exist in localities like this? It doesn't change the nature of not trying to censor people who simply say something that offends you. It's not the nature of whether or not you can censor them, it's whether or not you should. And in your support of censoring them, you violate the principle of protecting the right to speak out, whether or not it hurts your feelings or offends you. When you silence one person, you silence everyone, including yourself, by sacrificing that principle. THAT is the point I was trying to make.

For the record, my boss is a catechism teacher and devout Catholic. I've been threatened with a few write-ups in my time here for speaking out against ignorance in others. In most cases I've gotten throngs of emails praising my having had the guts to stand up and tell the truth. It was a fine line that I walked... but I also understand that AT WORK there is a limit to what I can get away with saying... yes that is the real world. But do I agree with the thin skinned and litigious nature of so many around me? FUCK NO I DON'T. Do I agree with everyone being so pathetically politically correct all the time? FUCK NO. Calling black people "African American" whether or not they are from Africa just because you're afraid to say BLACK? It's no worse than calling me white.

As far as you not being a Christian... then what are you, a deist? Where does your belief in GOD come from?

Let me give you a little food for thought: If the universe requires a creator because it is so complex, then why then would God himself not require a creator? And if God could always exist, then why couldn't the universe?

Mull that one over and tell me again why you believe in the man in the clouds smart girl. (I put it simply for you.)

Bottom line here is that I was defending a principle... a principle you can't seem to grasp the extent of... one that obviously most soldiers fighting and dying for it can't even grasp... which is patently sad.

Whether or not people make stupid local laws, or infringe daily on other people's civil rights due to a failure in understanding basic principles of freedom and liberty... that doesn't change those principles. The fact that our own president right now fails to grasp a large portion of the constitution doesn't change those principles. The fact that our government in the mid to late 1950's chose to violate the constitution and change our national motto and establish a religious observance for our country... none of these things change the basic principle at hand.

And no stupid amount of justification on your part is going to change the fact that you advocated silencing someone else's opinion because you disagreed with it. THAT is where you and your ignorant ilk crossed the line and violated that principle. And I will call you and everyone else on that list the ignorant people that they are for doing so.

(Frankly I'm more concerned about understanding and being right than I am about winning a popularity contest. I'd rather be in the intellectually superior minority than the masses of the mediocre afraid to offend.)

You should ponder the ability of a majority to wrongly oppress a minority.. the value of preserving neutrality and equality where possible. The wisdom of not silencing those who might disagree with you. The danger of assuming that laws are always just or that the actions of the many must dictate the course for the few.

You're acting as a sheep... and as much as you are trying to claim you're not, you're running with the flock as betrayed those very same words.

If you don't like what I have to say, don't read it. What have you got to lose, right? By your admission I'm wrong... mistaken.. I don't understand etc... I'm an asshole, I'm rude, I offend you.

Or hey... maybe you could just report me to blogspot and see if they can't shut down my blog for offending you... that's how you roll isn't it?